


Zeke, 2011

by Baylor



Series: Birthright [43]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Alien Resistance, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Gen, Homecoming, Weigh It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylor/pseuds/Baylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zeke, coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zeke, 2011

Mexico to New York to Sacramento

When Zeke finally woke, he realized three things: he was still alive, he was sober, and aliens had not taken over the world.

 _Whaddya know?_ he thought dully, and then slowly got out of bed. His body was stiff and aching, and he felt old. The calendar tacked to the wall was flipped to September. He squinted at it -- it also said “2011.” _Is that right?_ he wondered vaguely.

He’d been naked in the bed and there was no sign of the woman. His clothes were draped over an armchair in the corner. He knew where he was, if he wasn’t certain of the year. He was in the tiny set of rooms over a bar in a small, dusty town of the type that did not attract tourists on the Gulf in Mexico. The woman, Marta, was the bartender. Zeke had been able to hold onto these facts because he’d been there a while. How long, he couldn’t say, and he wasn’t sure where he’d come from.

He got dressed slowly, pulling on jeans and the white T-shirt, tying on tennis shoes. Then he ventured outside, using the door that led to the outside steps.

The morning sun glinted off the blue waters, and the beach was white and deserted. Zeke moved toward it on impulse, though he had intended to go down into the bar and look for breakfast. He lurched down to the water’s edge, feeling all of the grace and litheness of his youth lost to hard living and booze and grief, and thunked down on his ass.

His mind flashed suddenly to Casey on a New England beach, his jeans rolled up, playing with the waves even though it had been too cold out. His face had been innocently gleeful. 

Zeke let his head drop to his knees and stayed in that position until his stomach rumbled some time later. He stood up and dusted the sand off himself.

 _Do something_ , someone said in his head, and he answered out loud. “I’m not sure there’s anything else to do,” he said, but the feeling was already there, the need for action starting to twitch inside him.

 _Booze or breakfast?_ he pondered. His stomach rumbled again, but his hands were shaking, too. _And what from there?_

_____ 

He went with breakfast, to his own mild surprise. From the look on Marta’s face, she wasn’t offering booze. Zeke thought that maybe he’d been drying out upstairs for longer than a night.

“How long?” he asked vaguely when she sat down with him to sip at her coffee. 

“You’ve been here a couple of months,” she said. “I cut you off three days ago.”

“Hnh,” Zeke said. “Guess my memory’s not so good.”

“No,” Marta said, and if she didn’t sound sympathetic, she didn’t sound angry either.

“Thank you,” Zeke said when he’d finished breakfast. Then he asked, “Do I have a bag somewhere?”

She was disgusted with him, and helped him gather his things and stuff them into a duffle bag with lots of banging and glaring looks. “This is just the kind of bastard you are, Zeke,” she said as she showed him the door, but then she shoved a 50 dollar American bill in his front shirt pocket. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, because there really wasn’t anything else to say.

“We can’t help what we are,” she answered, “and I knew what you were as soon as you walked in the door. Try to stay off the liquor.” And she slammed the door behind him.

_____

In addition to Marta’s 50, he had $200 in American money in the front zipper of the duffle bag, and an assortment of Mexican money. Also in the front zipper was a passport with his picture, if not his name, on it. He got a lift to the nearest major city from some guys in a pickup truck, then took a belching, quaking bus to the border. 

He started taking Greyhounds east and north with no clear idea where he was going, and sometime later in the week, he was surprised when they pulled into a station marked “Columbus.” He was even more surprised when he looked at his ticket and realized that was where he’d purchased it to. Zeke got off and bought himself lunch at a diner across from the bus station.

 _I don’t think you’re quite all together yet, Zeke_ , the voice in his head said. _What are you doing here?_

What was he doing here? Where did he think he was going? Back to Herrington? Who, exactly, did he think he was going to look up there? Mrs. Connor was still there, but Zeke was pretty sure his mind would close in on itself if he tried that visit. There were the Rosados, and last he’d heard Stan had moved back someplace in Ohio, but there was no way in hell Zeke was going to look him up for a visit. His parents must have sold the house years ago.

There were some business cards in his wallet, so Zeke got them out and put them on the table. Mulder’s, not that it was any good. Zeke let his fingers softly brush it. Another with the name of a nun and her order. A white card with only a New York City number printed on it. Zeke had shown that card to Walter Skinner once and asked if he knew whose number it was. Skinner had snorted. “Don’t you know by now?” he’d asked. Zeke had never tested that theory out.

The last card was an attorney in Columbus. The Tylers’ attorney. For Zeke to call about his trust.

There was a pay phone in the diner, and Zeke scrounged change out of his pocket to make the call.

“Hi, my name is Special Agent John Doggett and I’m trying to reach George Barnes,” he told the receptionist “I need to talk to him about one of his clients, Susan Tyler, and the trust fund she has set up for her son.”

“Mr. Barnes is with a client right now,” he was told two transfers later, “but Mrs. Tyler is no longer a client of his anyway. We no longer administer that trust.”

“Do you know where I can reach her?” he asked in his best John Doggett voice. 

Another handful of change and several minutes of listening to canned piano music, she gave him an address in Manhattan. 

Zeke went back across the street and bought another ticket.

_____

The address was a nice-looking apartment building on the Upper East Side. _Mom’s doing well_ , he mused. It was 4 a.m., so Zeke crouched down against a wall across the street and stared at the building for 90 minutes before crossing and going into the lobby.

The doorman rang his mother, who said to send him up.

“I’ll start some coffee,” his mother said when she answered the door.

The apartment wasn’t large, but it was richly furnished. His mother had aged, but she still looked good, even in her silk pajama set and robe, her short hair sleep-tousled. She’d always been an attractive woman of the kind that would age well. 

“You own this place, Mom?” Zeke asked as he wandered aimlessly.

“Yes,” she answered. “We sold the house in Ohio,” she added.

“I figured,” he said. That had been coming whether he’d turned into a felon -- for the second time, no less -- or not.

They sat at the table and drank their coffee in silence. Zeke’s mother stared at him while he stared at his coffee. When he’d finished, she poured him a second cup and went out for bagels. 

The coffee was rich and dark and expensive, and it reminded Zeke of weekend mornings when he was a child, tasting just a sip of Mom’s coffee and feeling so grown-up. He wrapped his fingers around the mug and blinked back the tears that had sprung unexpected to his eyes. That happened a lot lately, ever since.

The bagels were large and chewy and slathered with rich cream cheese as only a New York bagel can be. It tasted fantastic, and Zeke ate slowly, savoring it.

He finally looked at his mother when he was finished. “I guess you need a place to stay,” she said.

“I’m not sure,” Zeke said truthfully. In fact, he wasn’t sure at all what he was doing there. He’d seldom thought of his parents over the years, and had never had the urge to drop in and say hi.

“I’ve got an extra bed,” she said, and despite all the coffee he’d just consumed, Zeke was weary as soon as he looked at that soft, inviting bed with the good sheets and comforter. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

_____

He slept for most of the next several days. His mother brought in excellent take-out, and brewed her rich coffee when he was awake. They didn’t talk much, and neither of them mentioned the fact that there were still arrest warrants out for Zeke.

On the fourth day, he woke and actually felt rested. His body did not ache when he got out of bed. His mother had bought him new jeans and shirts, and after he’d taken a long shower and shaved, he put on fresh clothes. 

The man in the mirror was 31 years old, and despite the fact that his skin was still great and his body still lean, he looked like he’d lived twice as long. It was in his eyes, and the set of his mouth. Zeke leaned against the dresser and looked hard at himself in the mirror. _What are you doing, man?_ he asked.

His mother had the coffee ready and the bagels out. She was staring at the wall, her fingers wrapped around her cup. “Morning,” Zeke said. She didn’t answer. He poured himself a cup and sat down, helping himself to a bagel.

“I’ve been a shitty mother to you,” she said, and Zeke set the bagel back down.

“I’ve been a shitty son,” he said, and she smiled sadly at him in agreement.

“You were just a kid, and I was never there for you,” she said. “I was so caught in my own grief that I never thought about yours. I know what it is to be crushed by grief, Zeke, so badly you don’t know how to go on.”

Zeke didn’t say anything. He knew it was true. His mother finished her coffee, then stood up. 

“Your friend left something here for you,” she said, and Zeke looked blankly at her. He didn’t have any friends. Not anymore.

“After,” she clarified. “A couple of years ago. In case you ever came here. I put it with the rest of your things.” And she slid an envelope across the table at him. “Zeke” was written on it in her neat script. 

“I have to go. I have a flight to Berlin today,” she said, and then slid a key over to him as well. “You can, well--” she waved vaguely in the air with her hand, and then abruptly leaned over to fiercely kiss the top of Zeke’s head. She roughly, jerkily stroked his hair, and then walked crisply out of the room. Zeke heard the roll of suitcase wheels and the click of the door.

He sat at the table for a long time, breathing. Then he opened the envelope. 

There was $2,000 cash, and a ream of legal paperwork. Zeke flipped through it. It was his trust, he realized with shock. It was his trust, laundered and strings-free and in a new name. A birth certificate and New York driver’s license to go with the name were also in the envelope.

How long? he wondered. How long had this been sitting here for him? It was the last thing in the world he had ever expected. He thought about sleeping in the car and counting out change to buy a meal and his throat clogged up and his hands shook.

There was one other slip of paper in the envelope, and when he unfolded it, he saw Stokely’s handwriting. The address was in Sacramento.

_____

It was dinnertime when he got there, but he couldn’t bring himself to ring the bell. It was a neat little condo amid a complex filled with neat little condos and nicely landscaped lawns. Zeke was glad that Stokely had ended up with something worth having.

He stood in the drive after sending the cab away and tried to remember when he’d last seen her, but he kept coming up blank. Had she been there that night? He thought maybe, but he couldn’t remember speaking to her. There was only one thing he could remember, and that was burning and clear.

He was crying, Zeke realized, standing in the drive, staring at Stokely’s front door, which suddenly opened.

“Hey,” Stokely said, but didn’t approach him.

“Hey,” he answered, and his voice shook.

“You coming in?” she asked.

“Not sure yet,” he said, and she nodded.

“OK,” she said. “When you’re ready.” 

Zeke nodded and took deep breaths until he stopped crying. Stokely just watched him from the doorway. He wiped his face on his shirt.

“Did we win?” he asked finally.

“More or less,” Stokely said. “Aliens haven’t taken over the earth.”

“I noticed,” Zeke said, and he laughed, a little, choking sound. “Is there anything left to do?” he asked.

“There’s lots left to do,” she said. “Are you back?”

Zeke picked up the duffle bag and walked to the door. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m back.”


End file.
